SAK w/ Saw?

Q

Quirt

Joined
Oct 10, 2005
Messages
1,030
I do not own a SAK...I know blaspheme right? I'm looing for a good reliable SAK that has a saw that can be used for woodworking in the wild. I don't really need all the other accessories..an Awl would be great but corkscrew, screwdriver, small blade, large blade et al is not needed.

What model do you recommend?
 
The Farmer and/or Hiker comes to mind. Or for a slightly larger size, the Rucksack, or One Handed Trekker.

u.w.
 
Agree with uncle willie. I carry a Farmer myself but in the woods I like to take my One Hand Trekker -- longer blades. I carried a Victorinox Ranger in NYC, and used the saw to clean up broken branches. Rotten kids! :)
 
The Farmer people talked me into in my thread is here. I really like it and it is thicker than my other SAK. I really do like my Fieldmaster too though because it has scissors. If I had to pick I'd go with the Farmer, but they are cheap enough to buy both.
 
Some time times I carry a victornox champion in one of their leather sheaths . Mostly if I have my day bag ,woods walking
Jake
 
If Awl and Saw are you 2 biggest wants then I say Farmer like everyone else. It is a fine knife.
 
Not a day goes by that I don't have my Farmer with me. It's the only knife I now have with me here in Afghanistan.
 
Officer's model. A buddy of mine says his SAK saved his bacon when he was shipwrecked on the upper Skeena River one frosty October about 20 years ago. He remarked that it's surprising how much firewood you can cut with one of those while waiting (three days) for the rescue party to show up.
 
Another vote for the farmer model.
Personally wish they find a way to put tweezers on those alox scales. Great for extracting splinters.
 
Farmer model or a Rucksack for me :) Just a well balanced set of tools on them.
 
if you do not need all the tools on the SAK
then do not get one
the Opinel folding saw is very light and much more useable than the SAK saw
 
Another vote for the Farmer unless you're willing to go on a quest for a Lumberjack. It has just the tools you want but can be difficult to find.
 
I like the One Handed Trekker. It is a useful knife. I like it better than the Farmer because it is a bit larger.

If you don't want the other tools, I would get a small folding saw (Silky)and it will certainly cut a lot faster than a SAK.
 
farmer to keep it simple, bigger would be trekker or rucksack models. A camper would do it as well, but I think thats more stuff than you are wanting, and I don't think the littler saw on it would be what you want.
 
Quirt said:
I do not own a SAK...I know blaspheme right? I'm looing for a good reliable SAK that has a saw that can be used for woodworking in the wild. I don't really need all the other accessories..an Awl would be great but corkscrew, screwdriver, small blade, large blade et al is not needed.

What model do you recommend?
Click to expand...

Hard to make a specific recommendation unless you can clarify what you mean by "woodworking in the wild".

I find SAK sized saws to be pretty useful tools around my shop and my property. They are particularly useful for small cuts when fetching a proper saw is not needed and can be useful for small branches that I can't get my knife blade to. I can cut through finger thick branches with my knife with much less effort than a small saw but sometimes that's not possible. Both of my big multi-tools have them and I'm glad for that.

I used to carry a full sized multi-tool in the woods on backpacking and ski trips and the saw one of the reasons but I found I never ever used it. For one, I prefer to use lightweight leave no trace methods such as using a tarp and a stove and because of this, really no need for a saw. On the rare trip that I carry a wood stove (Emberlit), the small saw just isn't big enough to feed the stove efficiently. Processing wet wood to get dry inside wood is labor intensive and hard even with a larger folding saw like a Silky Pocket Boy.

My standard backcountry combination is an Opinel #9 and a Leatherman Squirt PS4. I find the pliers to be valuable for gear repair in the field (zippers, stoves, sewing). For me, I consider knife, scissors and pliers to be essential in the woods, not a saw.

But this very much depends on what you want to accomplish and little with what I do. If you can tell us more about what you want to accomplish, people may be able to give better advice.
 
I have an Elinox Lumberjack, bought sometime in the late 1970s. It went lost in a desk drawer (don't ask), but resurfaced not long ago. The Lumberjack, for those who don't know, has a main blade, a cap lifter/screwdriver, and a saw. That's all. Here's the SAK wiki on it:

http://www.sakwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Lumberjack

Mine's the economy model. To the extent I can reconstruct my thinking in buying it, the following were factors: backpacking usage, cheap to buy, freeze-dry food so no cans to open, no weight taken up with tools I didn't think I'd need on the trail, and cheap, cheap, cheap.

The tool set looks a wee skimpy now, but it was adequate at the time, and that saw did get used. Confession: I have a walking stick, much used over the 35+ years since it was a live black-birch sapling [oh, no!] I cut down with the saw. This was in a thicket of birches in a Canadian provincial park [oh, no! oh, no!] on the north shore of Lake Superior. Mea culpa.

These days, I'd just get a Farmer and be done with it — that's my recommendation to you.

And I'd probably cut that walking stick again today if I didn't already have it. It's been up Mt. Washington several times, down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a one-day rim-to-rim, and it helped me ford a quicksandy stream in Canyon de Chelly, to mention a few places it's been.
 
Blasphemy, indeed ;) :p

I also vote for the Farmer. It has a great sortement of tools. The 93mm make it very pocketable - whereas the 109mm (Trailmaster, Rucksack etc.) I prefer on the belt sheath.

Being outdoors, I use to take a fixed blade with me, so the Vic blade doesn´t get used that much. Except for small cutting tasks and nothing rough.
 
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